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After Public Outcry From Customers, Britain's Biggest Bank HSBC Heads Off Complaints Over Small Business Account Closures (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fixing-things dept.

Julia Kollewe writing for The Guardian: HSBC has rushed to head off complaints from small businesses that found the bank had frozen or closed down their accounts as part of a crackdown on financial crime. Hundreds of small firms are thought to be affected, whose businesses range from an avocado importer to marketing and design companies. Britain's biggest bank, which has faced accusations of reacting slowly to the debacle, said that after becoming aware of problems in the past week, it was putting extra staff on its helpline and speeding up the process for dealing with complaints. It said staff were reducing the amount of time to unfreeze an account once a review had been completed. Earlier on Monday, Richard Davey, an HTML5 game developer and creator of Phaser, shared his ordeal dealing with HSBC, which had suspended transactions from his accounts without much explanation. It was only after thousands of users brought it to the company's attention on social media that the company fixed Davey's account, he said.

7 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Lesson Learned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't bank with HSBC unless you're a drug kingpin needing to launder money.

  2. US, too by JBMcB · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The US does this, too. There have been dozens of stories of small business owners having their accounts frozen for "structuring," or making multiple payments or withdraws under $5,000. Transactions over $5000 are reported to the government, so it supposedly is "shady" if you are doing multiple transactions below that limit. Problem is, some people make these types of transactions during regular business. Once frozen, it's up to the business owner to prove to the government that their transactions were legitimate, which can take months, during which time they can't access the money in their bank, which usually drives them out of business.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    1. Re:US, too by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't run a small business, but the sheer incompetence of large banks like these are why I do my banking with a credit union. Any time I've had an issue, I've been able to resolve it in under five minutes. If you get to know some of the people who work there, they'd probably nip idiotic moves like this in bud.

    2. Re:US, too by JBMcB · · Score: 4, Informative

      I don't run a small business, but the sheer incompetence of large banks like these are why I do my banking with a credit union. Any time I've had an issue, I've been able to resolve it in under five minutes. If you get to know some of the people who work there, they'd probably nip idiotic moves like this in bud.

      It's not the banks doing it, it's the federal regulatory agencies. Small banks have to report this behavior, too. It's the regulatory agencies that are ordering the banks to freeze accounts.

      Also, it's apparently $10,000 per transaction, not $5000.

      --
      My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    3. Re:US, too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The moronic part is that the $10k figure was set way back in a time when $10k was worth something. As time has passed, $10k has become less and less valuable, so larger swaths of people and businesses have been caught up by the RICO fishing net. Make no mistake -- it's a giant, ongoing, fishing expedition.

  3. Huh? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Funny
    Small businesss accounts are where the criminal action is?

    Oh - I forgot, big business crime is considered normal and good.

    Seriously, HSBC might just be committing a damn fine crime by doing this..

    Awp....There I go again - Any way to take little people's money is just good ethical business practice.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  4. HSBC rotten to the core by supernova87a · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I had an HSBC US personal checking account earlier last/this year, and I wrote to them saying that this was the most inept, understaffed, lack-of-executive attention operation at a bank that I'd ever seen.

    I experienced months of hearing nothing from them after opening an account online, the worst mobile app ever, nonsensical online password procedures, 30+ minute phone help line waits, and then to top it all off, an IRS form 1099-R delivered 2 weeks before the tax due date this spring.

    If you ever come to realize that companies are a lot like people and they have their own personalities, then you will find that HSBC (and Wells Fargo) are senile old people who nonetheless still want to be seen as growing and profiting, but taking shortcuts and leaving behind sloppy messes of customer accounts in disarray and miscommunication.

    Executives at the top who don't want to get into the details, and order things like, "I want to see customer numbers growing, and I don't care how you do it or what it takes! And it had better not cost us a lot to get it!"

    I hope they get fined into the stone age so that someone realizes you can't run a bank on the cheap. Or at least, cheap in the functions that matter.